Dish Network and NTelos will pursue a strategic relationship to co-develop a fixed mobile broadband service, they said. The companies signed a letter of intent to deliver wireless broadband within NTelos’ coverage territory serving Virginia, West Virginia and portions of Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky, Dish said in a news release Friday (http://bit.ly/11iDJAg). The service is expected to give NTelos and Dish customers, “many of whom are located in underserved rural communities, access to reliable high-speed Internet, whether at home or on the go,” it said. NTelos, as Dish’s first partner, is interesting “given its wholesale relationship with Sprint,” said Jennifer Fritzsche, Wells Fargo senior analyst. NTelos derived $40 million from its wholesale relationship with Sprint Nextel in the first quarter of 2013, she wrote investors. Wells Fargo’s Marci Ryvicker said NTelos is the “exclusive wholesale provider of wireless digital PCS services to Sprint Nextel in the western Virginia and West Virginia service area for all Sprint CDMA wireless customers,” in another research note. “This is important as whatever technology or services this new partnership develops is very likely to operate on Sprint’s PCS spectrum and could be easily utilized by a combined Dish/Sprint in our opinion."
News Corp.’s board approved its separation into the 21st Century Fox broadcast and cable company and the new News Corp. publishing firm, the company said in a Friday news release (http://bit.ly/12BqCXn). It said the split into two publicly traded companies is expected to occur June 28, as new directors for each company were named. (See Communications Personals section of this issue below.)
The Library of Congress registered 511,539 copyrights in 2012, said its annual report (http://1.usa.gov/Z5gJCn). The report discussed a mass digitization document published by the library in 2011 that “explores licensing models that have been proposed to clear rights in projects scanning copyrighted works and considers what aspects of digitization are or should be covered by fair use or library exceptions under copyright law.” The report also discussed the work of the Copyright Royalty Board, which began a proceeding to set licensing rates for sound recordings to be publicly performed for the four year period set to begin in 2014. “The judges conducted proceedings to determine royalty rates and terms for pre-existing subscription and satellite digital-audio radio services” as well as “proceedings to establish royalty rates and terms for music publishers and song writers,” the report said.
Sprint Nextel has begun preparing for hurricane season along the Atlantic, it said Thursday (http://bit.ly/10RixeW). Its emergency teams will begin responding 24-72 hours before a hurricane hits, Sprint said. “As part of that emergency protocol, Sprint pre-stages critical company assets in the region where the storm is expected.” That referred to portable generators, satellite cell on light trucks, cell sites on wheels, technicians and engineers and other assets the carrier would be able to deploy. Cell sites in Mississippi, Texas, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York have new permanent generators since last year. Sprint also offered hurricane tips for customers referred them to a hurricane-tracking app.
Companies are seeing increased numbers of application performance problems among networked apps, said a report from Ipanema Technologies (http://bit.ly/14HkNKy), which surveyed 650 information-technology professionals in the U.S. and Europe. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they saw app performance problems in the last 12 months, and 54 percent said they're seeing these problems more than they have in the past. The high rate of app performance problems indicates “there is a need to think about application management in a new way,” the report said. “Failing to do so could create widespread ‘application anarchy’ where a wide array of apps compete in a largely unmanaged way for scarce network resources.” Of the U.S. respondents, 90 percent said they experience app performance problems, and 69 percent of U.S. respondents said these problems are occurring more frequently than in the past, the report said. These developments come as the U.S. is experiencing “much faster bandwidth growth than other markets,” it said. “American companies are rapidly taking on certain exciting applications, such as video apps and cloud apps, faster than the rest of the world” and “suffering higher rates and more frequently occurring issues,” Ipanema said: That supports the idea “that throwing more bandwidth at the problem doesn’t provide the answer."
The FCC should examine the costs and effects of the freeze on station modifications to Class A and full-power status, the NAB told the Media Bureau in a meeting Monday, according to an ex parte letter filed with the FCC (http://bit.ly/10qn9JV). “There has not yet been an adequate examination of the true costs and benefits of such a freeze, including its impact on related industries beyond broadcasters and their viewers,” said the NAB. The trade association said if the FCC won’t lift the entire freeze, a partial relaxation would be preferable to the current situation. “There is no reason to impose a freeze on modifications for the entire industry if the Bureau is concerned only about a few stations,” said the NAB. “For example, to the extent that the Bureau is primarily concerned about modifications to UHF stations, the freeze should not be applied to VHF stations hoping to replicate pre-DTV transition coverage areas.” The NAB suggested the agency release an order on the freeze before taking up the larger issue of the incentive auction as a whole.
The General Services Administration gave Verizon Communications and others a new government-wide blanket purchasing agreement (BPA) that will help the U.S. government “better manage wireless spending by consolidating service plans and centralizing management,” Verizon said Wednesday. The BPA contract, awarded through the Wireless Federal Strategic Sourcing Initiative, will total up to $1.6 billion over five years. Verizon will use the contract to offer agencies “a broad array of mobility solutions, including machine-to-machine and data services to help agencies boost productivity and accelerate information sharing to help remake the business of government,” said Susan Zeleniak, Verizon Enterprise Solutions senior vice president-public sector markets, in a news release (http://vz.to/10qHm2g).
The FCC’s $7.6 million fine against Advantage Telecommunications (ATC) for “slamming” (http://bit.ly/Z3A8np) should be a warning to long distance carriers that the agency is actively pursuing slamming violators and “not showing them any love,” said communications lawyer Cheng-yi Liu in a post on the Fletcher Heald blog Thursday (http://bit.ly/Z3zF4r). Slamming is when a telco changes a consumer’s long distance provider without permission. Although most of the slamming enforcement activity came “years ago in the heyday of the long distance industry,” the penalties proposed in this case “are the most severe seen in a long time,” Liu said. It’s also the only instance Liu can recall where the commission has “tacked on penalties for truth-in-billing violations,” he said. “Now is a good time to revisit compliance processes, tighten up [third-party verification] scripts, and take other preemptive measures to avoid becoming the next ATC."
Technology groups continued to heap praise on Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, Thursday for introducing the Patent Abuse Reduction Act (S-1013). The bill (http://1.usa.gov/14S8p9Q) would require plaintiffs in patent lawsuits to disclose the substance of their claim and their identities, and require the losing party in the suit to pay for the cost of litigation, among other provisions. The bill “adds helpful momentum” to the debate over how to curb abusive patent litigation, said BSA/The Software Alliance Director of Government Relations Tim Molino. The Computer & Communications Industry Association also commended the bill: “For too long problems with our patent system have been slowing innovation and costing companies millions of dollars a year in legal costs from companies whose main product is lawsuits,” the group said in a news release. Internet Association President Michael Beckerman said the legislation “makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion about how best to put an end to abusive patent litigation practices and to promote, rather than burden, real innovation in today’s Internet economy.”
The Satellite Industry Association is pleased the Obama administration “has moved quickly to right-size the rules that govern exports of satellites and their parts and components, just a few months after Congress restored their authority to do so,” said SIA in a news release Thursday (http://bit.ly/11fGfay). “We view sensible and effective export controls as a vital tool to enhance our nation’s space industrial base and encourage the satellite sector’s ongoing leadership in innovation and investment,” said President Patricia Cooper. The State Department and Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security had released concurrent proposed rules on changes to the U.S. Munitions List and Commerce Control List for spacecraft and related items. That was the latest export control reform step. The proposed rules can be seen at http://1.usa.gov/10qOdc4 and http://1.usa.gov/11fSQKE.